The Ched Evans saga is the hardest subject I’ve ever to tried to cover in this column but covering it is unavoidable.

There are two irreconcilable principles at work pulling in opposite directions here. One is the abhorrence against rape, the felony for which he got a five-year sentence and for which he has not expressed any remorse. The second is the rehabilitation of offenders back into society, once they have “done their time”.

So should his previous club Sheffield United be “looking out” for him by letting him train there with the squad, so that he can get his fitness back?

It’s caused a massive furore with Jessica Ennis-Hill insisting that her name comes off the stand named in her honour, if the Blades go on to re-employ him.

Are professional footballers different from other “trades” because they are role models for young boys and teenagers, and sufficiently different that the principle of rehabilitation of offenders after completing a sentence doesn’t apply?

There are two complications here.

Ched Evans is out on licence, having been released as is the normal practice, halfway through his five year sentence.

Is it appropriate to say that Evans has “served his time”?

If the club envisages that he will train with the club to get his fitness his back but they don’t consider offering him a contract for another two years (assuming he’s good enough in football terms by then).

By that time he will have served his five year term. That might be seen as a reasonable way through this.

The other complication is that he clearly is convinced that he is not guilty of any crime and his long standing girl friend is still sticking by him. No expression of remorse means he doesn’t understand why the jury found him guilty.

That’s a real dilemma for Evans. If he expresses remorse, he is accepting that what he did really was rape.

That might mean it was a lot easier for the club and the public to accept him back as a Championship footballer one day.

On the other hand, it means a massive change is his own view of himself as a wrongly convicted victim of the courts and denied the right to appeal to boot.

But it is probably the only way back for him.

The late autumn sun has been a boon to gardeners as well as Cardiff Bay walkers (Image: Andy James)

A mild November in the garden

In this mild weather I’m still picking raspberries and garden peas.

It’s been a really strange year for growing and picking.

That dry September worked wonders for the blackberries, the best for many years but hopeless for mushrooms. They were like dinner plates (well almost – we mushroom pickers always exaggerate!) last year. Not a single one this year.

The oddest experience I’ve had this autumn was picking blackberries with great concentration, stripped to the waist after a long walk in the Indian Summer late in September, then realising that my dog William Tell had tucked himself tight against my heels while lying on his side. Never known this behaviour before.

What I’d missed was that, less than three feet away from the dog and me was a semi-circle of maybe eight almost full-grown bullocks. One of them had picked my sweat-soaked T-shirt, slobbered over it and sniffed it, then dropped it again.

The Labrador thought I needed protecting, so that was he was bonding his body with my legs like that, or he thought I would protect him. I can’t be sure. My response was just to turn back to the blackberries and carry on picking until the bullocks got bored.

I had to pretend they weren’t there. In the end they did go away. Never have I been so glad that my dog was there with me. Either of us alone would have done something rash. As a team we could stay totally calm and focused.

Final thoughts on the autumn is that a late crop of garden peas may take a long time for the peapods to fill up with normal size peas.

That’s because the sun is low but the taste, when they finally do get to pickable size is wonderful. That’s provided you get them straight from the garden into the saucepan and the plate. Don’t let anyone tell you that frozen peas are just as good. Not true!

The front cover of Niklaus Thomas-Symonds biography of Aneurin Bevan

A new biography of Nye Bevan

I'm halfway through the new biography of Nye Bevan by Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds. It’s called simply Nye. It’s the perfect complement to Michael Foot’s biography, which I read years ago. Michael’s book on Bevan rips along with great gusto but it has no footnotes. It also verges on the hero worship now and again. Thomas-Symonds’ Nye is a lot slower paced with just about everything footnoted up to the hilt.

Bevan was a pragmatic revolutionary really – if there is such a thing. The story of how he cajoled, browbeat and bribed the medics not to boycott the new National Health Service in 1948 is a gripping story. Looking back, it was nothing short of a miracle against the background of the post-war austerity.

A couple of things I’d totally forgotten about the 1945-51 era. The first was just how low Winston Churchill stooped in trying in vain to stop Labour winning the 1945 election. In one campaign speech he said Labour would need a Gestapo to carry out their plans. Great war leader Churchill might have been but that remark is a huge stain on his character.

Not that it made a blind bit of difference to the Labour landslide!

The other bit I’d forgotten was over Bevan’s resignation in 1951 over the imposition of prescription charges. I thought he’d resigned as Health Minister to be replaced by Hilary Marquand (our neighbour in Radyr until 1943). I was wrong.

Attlee had reshuffled the pack earlier that year, splitting up Health and Housing. Marquand was already Health Minister, Hugh Dalton the Housing Minister and Bevan was Minister of Labour when he resigned. You’re fully armed for any pub quiz on that period and so am I!